Hello Steemians,

Prototyping is one of the initial builds that we frame before actually deploying it in real time scenarios. But as we go through IOT, we will come to know that prototyping isn't that easy or at least cheap. IOT is at the peak at this moment, new researches are being carried out and a lot of prototyping is going on to formulate their research. New PCB boards are also available for the prototyping. In the initial years of the IT industry, prototyping costs a lot which eventually caused the loss of the overall budget and they end up dumping the project. Breadboards, heavy wiring was the other side of this whole scenario. The new ways of Prototyping have literally changed the overall projection of the IT industries. This not only created a lot of startups but also employed and nurtured the lives. Let's have a glimpse of how prototyping became the feasible part of any startup ideas.

Source: - https://theappsolutions.com/

Transitions

• There are basically 3 layers in a gadget and that is hardware, software, and network. Hardware is all PCB and regulated components, software is the end application which serves as the interface between the gadget and user whereas network extends the capability by regulating the captured or processed data over a communication interface like Internet!
• 1960 - 1970 is the period which falls in the first phase where prototyping is too much costly, where nearly 100% of components are custom built and possess programs which are written in assembly language. Programs were machine dependent and portability was null.
• 1970-1980 is the second phase period where 30% of components were available whereas the rest 70% parts were still needed to be, custom-built. The advancement in the programming languages gave rise to the more publically adaptable programming languages like C#, LISP, and many more. However, security of data was becoming a hot topic.
• 1980 - Present is the third phase where OOP(object-oriented programming) begins to replace the old languages which were not handy in terms of handling data. In this phase 70% parts are available, however, 30% parts are still customs or based on the project outlines. Networking is the key which has speeded up the whole process and there is the tremendous amount of data which are needed to be processed, which eventually gave rise to data mining or big data.
• These 3 phases are the important history of today's Internet world. These constitute the early development and advancement in technology.

Arduino and Raspberry Pi

source: - youtube.com

• In the early 2000's the demand for prototyping started getting a boost which attracted many developers to build a platform which is like a cake for beginners or the people who want to prototype some gadgets.
• These attracted the developers of Arduino, which eventually ended up framing a wiring and PCB which was cheap and easy for the early adopters of IOT or the geeks.
• Arduino started producing Printed Circuit Boards which can serve as the basic foundation of prototyping and provided a platform which was ready to be played. The basic version of Arduino's generally constitutes of I/O pins, microprocessors, flash onboard memories along with ATmega or Atmel chipsets.
• Arduino is a micro-controller which is built to process the given tasks, however, there are certain drawbacks to Arduino boards and that is multitasking which is not in the manifest and less network oriented. Also, such boards are meant for the small applications like blinking LED or some sort of data transfer between pins.
• This drawback of Arduino gave rise to a new competitor Raspberry Pi, although the advantages and disadvantages are on their place, the motive of both the boards is to ease out the process of prototyping.
• Raspberry Pi is like a system-on-chip and you can be also referred to a general computer. The main difference between the microcontroller and the general purpose computer is that the microcontroller is designed to perform a given task on a given set of instructions whereas general purpose computers are available to carry out any general computing tasks.
• Raspberry Pi is an advanced version of prototyping boards which can run any OS or code whereas Arduino does not have any OS, it directly loads the code from the flash memory and accompanied by the bootloader. Raspberry Pi is more network-oriented and can do multitasking, however, Raspberry Pi is a bit heavier than Arduino on the pocket.
• It still a user's choice to go for which one. More PCBs are releasing on every second year so we do not have to wait for any longer to see something better than these popular boards.

A prototype isn't a product

• One cannot 'refer' a prototype as a product, both product and prototype are different and they both constitute different development phases and the process which is involved in making.
• Many a time, the gadget that is prototyped not ends as a product and the reason is the cost and mass adaptation. Materials that are used in the prototype can cost a lot while deploying it in production or in real scenarios.
• Fabrications that are used in modeling a prototype can be a subject that changes in the final product. The methods and the process that is involved in a production may vary from the ones used in the prototype phase.
• Verification is another scenario, a prototype is not a subject for the verification or any quality assurance whereas the final product which is built from a prototype model is strongly a subject to the verification and quality assurance.
• It is always advisable to use existing technology, process, methods, and fabrication while designing a model instead of creating a new set of protocols. The good thing about this is that you never have to worry about the development of a final product. Creation of new protocols may return some results which are generally not practical in reality.
• Scaling a prototype is the most important center of point of all this discussion. Scalability decides that whether the product is going to be successful or unsuccessful in the development or in the future projection. We will look more about these concepts in upcoming blogs.
• I hope you get the mean of what I am discussing with you here. You can ping me anytime in the comment section below.

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://vishalsingh4997.timeets.com/2018/08/06/iot-prototyping-gadgets/

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